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Showdown over Superior Town Center promises boisterous turnout

Final public hearing on controversial project to be held at Monarch High

By John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
07/28/2013 02:00:00 PM MDT

Plans for the Superior Town Center.

If you go

What: Public hearing on Superior Town Center

When: 7 p.m., Monday

Where: Monarch High School, 329 Campus Drive, Louisville

Superior may be about to experience the biggest showdown it has seen in recent memory, with residents preparing to do battle over a controversial mixed-use development proposed for one of the last pieces of prime real estate in town.

The turnout for Monday evening's public hearing on Superior Town Center is expected to far outstrip the capacity of Town Hall, prompting town officials to move the meeting to Monarch High School in Louisville.

The hearing, which begins at 7 p.m., will be the last chance for Superior residents to sound off in front of the Board of Trustees on the mixed-use project -- which calls for 1,400 homes, half a million square feet of retail and commercial space, multi-purpose athletic fields, civic buildings, and a town square for festivals and other events.

A final vote from the trustees on the project isn't expected until Aug. 19.

Beth Moyski, Superior's assistant town manager, said she's not surprised by the level of passion Superior Town Center has evoked among the town's residents.

"Superior is landlocked -- it's the last significant parcel in town that is available for development," she said.

The 157-acre site at the southeast corner of U.S. 36 and McCaslin Boulevard has been eyed for development for the better part of two decades and San Diego-based Ranch Capital LLC only presented its plan for the parcel in March. Even though the $700 million project has undergone intense scrutiny from elected leaders over the last couple of months, with multiple hearings and late night question-and-answer sessions, some residents feel like the whole process has been rushed.

James MacInnis, an 18-year resident of the town and a former planning commissioner, said the plan is not what residents expected out of the design guidelines the town put forward for the site at the end of last year.

He decried it as too residentially focused and devoid of the kind of central gathering space that will bring the town together physically and spiritually. He and other detractors have also complained about $140 million in tax increment financing -- sales and property taxes above and beyond what is generated on the site today -- that is pitched as a way to pay for roads, utilities and other improvements the project requires.

"It doesn't create enough retail space and it uses public money to build houses," MacInnis said. "That's just not done. The worst part is that it doesn't create a downtown for Superior -- it creates a housing development where our downtown should be."

Ranch's director of real estate, Randy Goodson, said nothing could be further from the truth. He said the proposed Superior Town Center offers the town a number of assets it doesn't currently have and promises to bring a "vibrancy" to an otherwise sleepy bedroom community.

"It completes Superior -- it completes the road network, provides people a place to go and completes the housing stock," Goodson said. "We will have housing for empty-nesters and seniors so that they don't have to leave Superior as they age."

Instead of more single-family homes, Goodson said, Superior Town Center will feature more urban style cottages, townhomes and urban villas -- units that top out at 2,500 square feet. There's also the likelihood of two hotels, with a combined 375 rooms, coming to the development.

"We've gotten a strong response from a number of hotel operators, given the project and its location," he said.

Goodson said it is likely Superior Town Center will have 250,000 square feet of retail along with 250,000 square feet of commercial space, though that is not guaranteed. The plan calls for flex space throughout the project that can serve a number of uses. Goodson said the market will ultimately decide what goes into those spaces.

He said Ranch has been responsive to citizen and trustee concerns by making changes to its original plan. Building heights have been brought down "to a very pedestrian scale" and critical road connections -- specifically the extension of Coal Creek Drive -- have been made to tie Superior Town Center into both Original Town and Rock Creek Ranch, he said.

Inside the development, Goodson said, there is now a proposed pedestrian promenade extending from the 1.2-acre town square up to the Coal Creek corridor, where plans call for athletic fields, an amphitheater and a community garden.

Brent Bickel, who has lived in Superior for 16 years, strongly backs the project. He said much of the opposition comes from residents who live just south of the site and stand to lose their unobstructed views from their backyards.

"If they can effectively delay the project long enough, I think they have a good chance of killing it," Bickel said.

He said Boulder Valley Ice, which plans to relocate within the development and expand to a two-sheet facility, will serve as an anchor for Superior Town Center and draw people in from around the metro area. And he likes the fact that the project doesn't look like everywhere else in town.

"I think this development is critical to the town," Bickel said. "It provides us with the town center we need and the diversity of housing that we need now and for the future."

But MacInnis said the incremental changes Ranch Capital has made to its plan over the last few weeks don't address the larger issues and don't pass muster with many people in town. He said it's curious that the approvals process is happening in the height of summer, when many people are on vacation and out of touch.

He said he will be there on Monday to let the town know his feelings on the proposal.

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